Summary

Agriculture has manifold impacts on the environment and plays an important role in the environmental impacts of food chains. Previous studies have shown that organic farming can reduce these environmental impacts. But also within organic farms there is a high variability in their impacts on the environment. In our case study with five organic dairy farms, the farm with the highest energy demand used over 2.5 times more energy than the farm with the lowest energy demand. This indicates that further optimisations are possible. Therefore, the farmer is an important factor. The efficient use of his own resources together with an adept combination of different branches can contribute to the ecological optimisation of his farm. But for every farm and every environmental impact, different means of productions play a crucial role. For a longterm reduction of the environmental impacts of a farm a holistic, individual and detailed analysis considering all impacts of the life cycle is essential.